Practical Law Public Sector addresses the questions that schools may ask local authorities regarding day-to-day school management and sets out the legal issues to consider when responding.
This FAQ looks at schools’ obligations towards pupils with severe asthma. For details of all our school hotline queries, please see Practice note, Schools hotline FAQs.
Q: Darren has just started in reception class and his mother has told the school he is severely asthmatic. What are the school’s obligations towards Darren in this regard?
A: Asthma is a common disease and all school staff should be trained in how to treat an attack using the child’s inhaler. Anyone can administer a medicine to a third party with that person’s consent (or in this case the consent of someone with parental responsibility for the child concerned). Darren’s particular needs should be discussed with his mother and an inhaler should be left at school in a secure but readily accessible location. Darren should not leave the school premises, except to go home, without his inhaler. The school should address asthma treatment as part of its wider school policy on medical needs.
See Department for Education: Managing medicines in schools (January 2013) and Department for Education and Skills: Managing Medicines in Schools and Early Years Settings (March 2005).